Hydrothermal Synthesis of Nanostructured Titania

Titania ceramics have many applications due to its surface properties and, recently, its nanostructured compounds, prepared by hydrothermal treatments, have been described to improve these properties. In this work, commercial titanium dioxide was treated with 10% sodium hydroxide solution in a pressurized reactor at 150 degrees C for 24 hours under vigorous stirring and then washed following two different procedures. The first one consisted of washing with water and ethanol and the second with water and hydrochloric acid solution (1%). Resulting powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction, N-2 gas adsorption and field emission gun scanning and transmission electronic microscopy. Results showed that from an original starting material with mainly rutile phase, both anatase and H2Ti3O7 phase could be identified after the hydrothermal treatment. Surface area of powders presented a notable increase of one order of magnitude and micrographs showed a rearrangement on the microstructure of powders.